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Comment by thitcanh | Hacker News Reader

This sounds like the Italian digital ID: required by the government, managed by multiple companies. It’s called SPID.

It’s usually free, but there’s also certified email (PEC) that costs from 5€ to 30€ per year. Also required by the government in some cases and also offered by a small number of companies.

Does Estonia offer their digital IDs directly?

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Estonia does, their identity card stuff is pretty amazing and I remember reading about it a few years ago thinking it was truly ahead of it's time [0].

Looks like anyone can become an e-resident and apply [1], I'm unsure if this extends to the e-identify cards also or if they're for Estonian nationals only. I remember previously that anyone could apply for one however you had to go to an Embassy to submit information and biometrics.

[0] https://e-estonia.com/solutions/e-identity/smart-id [1] https://e-resident.gov.ee/become-an-e-resident/

Digital ID in Estonia is government-managed and comes for free for everyone with your physical ID. When you get your physical ID you also get the corresponding passwords to use the same ID online with a card reader etc. You can use all online services etc with the above without any extra fees. In addition to that, all telecom companies offer a cheap (usually free if you're on a recurring plan) tie in authentication with your phone where you can use your mobile to authenticate instead of a card reader.

As an alternative to SPID you can also use your national electronic ID card, which is issued by the state without the involvement of private companies.

If a service uses SPID, you need SPID. The SPID login screen doesn’t offer “National ID card” as an option.

Some services may offer alternative logins, but my guess is that they’ll be phased out like INPS is phasing out PIN-based logins.

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